


i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)

by magesamell



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Explicit Language, F/M, Hawke Angst, Morning After, References to Sex, Smooching, elf angst, mention past noncon, obvious symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 09:52:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3724474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magesamell/pseuds/magesamell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here it is. The future. The day after his master dies dawns cool and misty. Fenris watches it from the window, and tries to swallow his fear.<br/>Fenris and Hawke, the morning after "Alone"</p>
            </blockquote>





	i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)

The morning comes, and Fenris stays. Not that there is much to flee to, since Hawke currently occupies the few havens he keeps in this city; indeed she has thoroughly ingratiated herself into his house, his privacy. Her robes lie innocuously on the chilled stone by his bed; a cold remnant of a warmer memory. Her father’s staff leans alongside his greatsword on the fall, her forgotten wine class sits near his on the table. The woman herself lies naked in his bed, legs tangled in his meager sheets, sniffling softly. He won’t ever be able to forget her presence. He won’t ever be able to behold his armchair again without also seeing her smile as she looked up at him through her lashes, the moment he told her -- _a future to be had._

Well here it is. The future. The day after his master dies dawns cool and misty, morning fog swelling from the docks and rising all the way to Hightown. Fenris watches it from the window, and tries to swallow his fear.

He knew, of course, that this wouldn't be easy. He had hoped against hope that it would be, that everything would fall into place and they could be together simply. But here he is, with a sleeping naked woman in his bed, absolutely terrified that she would awake and decide, quite sensibly, that perhaps the city's champion _shouldn't_  be dallying with a former elven slave. A man who abandoned her, who left her brokenhearted for three years.

He'd apologized, but it hadn't felt like enough. They'd fucked, and she laughed, and she hugged him as she fell asleep, her curling mouth brushing the right corner of his lips, her eyelashes brushing the skin on the top of his cheek -- and it didn't feel like enough. He wasn't sure what would be enough, what would convince both Hawke and himself of his --

devotion.

(And there’s another fear curdling his throat -- what is this? What does he feel beyond desire, beyond affection? What does love mean outside shackles, outside the sweet acid of his master’s poison?)

He’s scared to death that she will leave him and he’s scared to death he will get so fearful he will leave her. Fear has gripped him for so long, too intensely to let one night ward it away. But he is tired of it. Fear has made him stray from her side for three years and he will be damned if fear leads him astray again.

Hadn’t she told him -- hadn’t she said _I’m here, Fenris_ \--

Hadn’t she smiled?

A small gasp fills the room, a bitten down, whooshing swear. Hawke raises her head from his lonely pillow and looks at the empty place beside her, and then at him. Her eyes are very wide and bright for someone so recently awoke. He has known panic too often not to recognize it on her countenance. But Hawke relaxes when she registers his presence, smirking the smirk he knows means she's embarrassed.

"Fenris. I, I thought you had--"

“I didn't." If he truly intended to leave, he’d have put on more clothes than just his leggings.

"I know. I just. I thought."

They stare at each other for long seconds. At the same time, they start--

"Listen, Fenris--"

"Hawke--"

She giggles nervously at their shared outburst; he inclines his head and she coughs, eyes fluttering downcast. He regards her bare shoulders with some interest.

"All I wanted to say is that...if it was like last time...if it's too much or...not what you want -- I understand. I mean, I'll be bloody irritated but I can -- I will leave. If you want." Hawke coughs again into her fist, shoulders jumping. He tears his gaze away from her freckled skin and stares at her.

"Do you want to leave?" He forces himself to say it.

"Well, no."

Relief. Then --

"You want to stay?"

"Well of course I want to stay." She says it effortlessly, meeting his gaze. She says it like _Fenris doesn’t belong to anyone_ and _I’m here, Fenris_ and _A Tevinter magister? What’s the worst that could happen?_

"Of course," Fenris murmurs, looking back out the window. It is still too early for any of Kirkwall’s nobles to be up and about, but no doubt the dockhands have been awake for at least an hour. The murky air still overpowers.

"Fenris, I don't understand."

He turns to look at her. "Neither do I. "

Hawke’s eyes sparkle, but she does not laugh. "What ... don't you understand?” She says instead, slowly, calmly --  as if she were speaking to a skittish horse. It infuriates him, suddenly, how careful how she is, how fearful she is. He wishes her to have easy faith in him, but even more than that an easy anger. Uncertainty killed them before, and it will kill them again.

"You forget three years, Hawke!” He spits out suddenly, harsh and brutal and clear in the foggy morning. “You treat them like they are nothing! I don't understand how you cannot resent me. I left you alone for -- years. I don't understand how you can want to stay after such a slight."

Hawke's mouth quivers queerly, caught between a smirk and a frown. "I don't know what you want me to say. Last night you asked for my forgiveness and I gave it. There wasn’t even anything to --”

"But you had no reason to, Hawke,” he interrupts. “You had -- someone else ---" Fenris turns to the window again, closing his eyes against the growing rejection he builds for himself in his mind. Now she will realize, now she will leave. Someone could serve her better, and someone should.

He hears Hawke rises quietly from the bed, feels her join him at the window. She touches his shoulder, and when he leans into the touch -- turn his head -- he sees that her smile is the same as before.

"Nah," she says quietly. "I don't have anyone. You're it." She catches his eye and taps her chest, on her left side. "No one else rattling around in there."

He chuckles despite himself, feels his brow relax. He stares at where she touched her chest, the patch of skin just above her heart.

"I was afraid," he admits. "I thought you wouldn't want this."

She laughs disbelievingly. "And you got this impression, when, hmm? During all that time I was moving on and sexing up and falling in love with any poor sod who glanced my way?”

The joke is too coarse, her laugh too sharp, her grief uncomfortably real. But he doesn’t look away, and she softens before his eyes. “I’m sorry. I thought it was obvious. I mean, you had this,” she takes his wrist, grips the red favor. “You had this to let me know. I thought you knew I felt -- I thought you knew I was waiting for you.”

He had known it. He _has_ known it, known it since she resumed their lessons. He’s known it from when those lessons did not cease once he learned to read -- when instead of readers she brought him wine, and instead of reading they simply spoke. He’s known it from every look and glance she gave him; it had been an unspoken devotion, an unspoken promise until she did speak it.

_I’m here, Fenris._

And here she is. Hawke, honest, transparent, and bold -- she stands before him naked and bare and unapologetic with the sea in her eyes and the night in her hair. Her shoulders are freckled, and he loves -- 

He loves the small gasp she lets out when he seeks her waist with his hands, when he pulls her close, lets her nose knock softly against his own.

To kiss her is a simply thing after that, easy and effortless and meaningful when words are not. It’s not overly deep, nor prim and tight-lipped, but something in between; a moderation unused to the both of them. A kiss without anticipation.

“I was a fool to leave,” he mumbles to her cheek when they break apart.

She shifts in his embrace, shakes her head slightly. “You didn’t leave, not really. I was the fool. I was the one who didn’t understand.”

He considers the claim, weighs its validity. Had she understood then, as she did now? Perhaps the separation was as educational as it was for him; though perhaps if he had _stayed_ , if he simply _told her_ \--

It is the past. He tells her this, and kisses her again, cupping her cheek with one hand. The sun shines through the city fog.

This is the future.

 -o-

 

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

  
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

_ee cummings_


End file.
